


you've got bleached out eyes from the valley sand and the black tar palms keep weeping your name

by thepaperbones



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Bakery, Deity Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), First Meetings, HAHA GAY, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Los Angeles, M/M, Magical Realism, Meet-Cute, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mild Language, Moving In Together, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Recreational Drug Use, dream is homiesexual pass it on, i'm still allergic to dialogue but it's getting better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:35:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27909832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepaperbones/pseuds/thepaperbones
Summary: “Holy shit,” says George. He has the vaguest suspicion that he looks Incredibly Stupid, goggling at the guy in front of him. He can’t really help himself. It’s not exactly his fault that the stranger has really pretty eyes, he tells himself as he falls at three hundred miles per hour into flooded sunlit pools fringed with golden feather grass.in which two sparks of the same kind meet and create a wildfire
Relationships: Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Floris | Fundy & GeorgeNotFound, GeorgeNotFound & Darryl Noveschosch, GeorgeNotFound & Niki | Nihachu, GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Zak Ahmed & GeorgeNotFound, Zak Ahmed/Darryl Noveschosch
Comments: 20
Kudos: 156





	you've got bleached out eyes from the valley sand and the black tar palms keep weeping your name

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fensandmarshes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fensandmarshes/gifts).



> hee hee hoo hoo fic exchange w @fensandmarshes. title is a reference to "LA devotee" by panic at the disco because i cannot move past my emo middle school phase. thank you as always to @lieyuu and @fensandmarshes for betaing this is a prompt from @fensandmarshes. also i am dnf trash holy shit. this time the work is non-lapslock since i got heckled for it with "second only sons", my fundycentric fic that is, in my admittedly very biased opinion, worth checking out

The thunk of items clattering within the moving van has a sort of grim finality to it. George can’t help but feel a tiny bit homesick as he unloads his possessions, which is surely understandable for someone who’s moved halfway across the country to pursue an apprenticeship. 

Looking back, George is thankful that he’d been distracted, because it had set off the chain of events that had more or less changed his life. 

The ascent happens like this:  
1\. George makes the grave mistake of forgetting to label his boxes upon boxes of things, and as the back of the van rolls up slowly, he curses softly but vehemently.  
2\. In his state of total abandonment, he commits the crucial error of dropping a crate that he had not yet known contained all of his valuables. The startling clink and hiss of shattering potion bottles make sure that he is immediately aware of this blunder.  
3\. A passerby who is, unfortunately for George, extremely pretty, stops to stare, which he doesn’t take to too kindly - he is all too familiar with the piercing looks that mark him as Other and Hateable in his hometown.  
4\. If George had turned his head away in time, he might have almost missed the look of overwhelming kindness in the stranger’s eyes, something he wasn’t quite used to.

“Holy shit,” says George. He has the vaguest suspicion that he looks Incredibly Stupid, goggling at the guy in front of him. He can’t really help himself. It’s not exactly his fault that the stranger has really pretty eyes, he tells himself as he falls at three hundred miles per hour into flooded sunlit pools fringed with golden feather grass. 

George follows this first remark with “Nice eyes,” which he’s sure lands him solidly in the ‘fucking weirdo’ category. The guy smirks, cocksure, and it can’t be fair that his smile, a crooked crescent moon that could swallow up the night, lights George up inside in a nigh indescribable way. It’s like staring into the visage of Apollo himself, what with the golden warmth he exudes.

Just as George is about to pass away (cause of death: extraordinarily gay) and never return, the guy finally speaks up. 

“So. Did you, maybe, perhaps, want help with that?” he asks, gesturing broadly at the puddle of now faintly-sparking liquid that is seeping quickly from the soggy bottom of its cardboard container. George’s anxiety is quickly reaching a peak, and he mumbles something along the lines of a “yes” as he reaches out for the box at the same time the stranger does. Their knuckles collide and it feels like a static shock to George, who jerks his hand back ever so slightly. 

(The stranger is, upon closer inspection, pretty, but in a startling, vaguely different kind of way. George thinks he rather likes it.)

“If you wanted to hold hands, you could’ve just said,” he laughs, electrifying George. His rattled expression says it all, and the pretty guy collapses his teasing smirk into a gentle smile, offers his hand again. 

He tells George his name is Dream, and George privately thinks it’s a weird name but he’s never been one to judge. It’s pretty enough, suits him and his half-ethereal face. In the end, he returns the handshake with a friendly smile and his name. Dream helps him unload his boxes and settle in his apartment. 

Dream, for his part, isn’t too sure what made him stop. He likes to think it’s the human nature he’s learned over the century. It certainly had nothing to do with the boy crouching on the pavement, with distress written all over his features like it was personally begging Dream to bridge the two feet between them, settle his chin in one gloved hand and brush away the boy’s discomfort. 

He’s almost thrown off by George’s staring, convinced that maybe he’s made his eyes a little too big or his teeth slightly sharper. Three centuries have made him paranoid, and the wave of relief that sweeps over him at the compliment makes Dream dizzy like he’s coming off a cocaine high. 

Even without the potion of invisibility that is making itself a resident of the asphalt, it’s immediately obvious that his new acquaintance is a witch, just in the innate way that magic recognizes magic. Fortunately, he can tell that George is too young and inexperienced to pick up on Dream’s own magic, which is far more menacing and subversive than the glitzy, cosmopolitan energy that George gives off. 

George is flustered in a pretty way, and the uncertain half grin and cherry blossom blush that garnish his pale features make Dream want to know him better immediately. 

Dream helps him settle into the City of the Angels, and as he does, he learns things about the cute stranger from the sidewalk, namely that George is:  
1\. A witch (unsurprising)  
2\. From Britain (also unsurprising, given the soft angles of his accent)  
3\. Hoping to study under some mage who he does not name (surprising, as most newcomers to the city are just hoping to establish a work life and make it big)  
4\. An artist (he’d found out when they were unpacking a couple boxes with smears of baby blue streaked haphazardly on the sides, whose contents George was a little too private about)

Dream casually doesn’t mention that most people who try to make it big in the magic business end up disappointed, their hopes scattered across the Boulevard and ground into cinders like the clumsy lines of mountain ash that celebrities have made a trend of smoking. 

He sees the look in George’s eyes and recognizes the ambition there, familiar like the noise of the glittering lights that keep the city awake. Dream knows that most who take this path do not succeed, but something about the hope in his new friend’s eyes makes him keep the cynicism to himself. 

Instead, Dream contents himself with letting George think he is human, flirting shy circles around him, and eventually, slowly but all too suddenly, falling in love.

It’s not instant, like he knows some romances are. It’s tangible friendship blurring into faint romance - drunk texts that are a little too sweet, staying overnight and sleeping in George’s bed, ambiguously sweet nothings murmured after a few too many drinks, brushing almost too close as they watch movies together on George’s apartment’s worn couch. 

And maybe he hadn’t foreseen that it would be slow, but George - perfect, beautiful George, consistently mortal - is impatient.

He remembers that one night, where they’re both a little tipsy and sleep-deprived. All of a sudden he finds himself leaning too close to be platonic, his forehead resting against George’s. 

“Oh,” George murmurs, his lips parting imperceptibly, almost dumbly. Dream reads his face, saturated with indescribable emotion, and closes the space between them. They kiss a little awkwardly, misplaced teeth and soft mouths, and when they part for a few moments, George stares at him like he’s the whole universe and then some. Dream can’t bring himself to object.

(George tells himself that the surge of electricity he felt gathering in his bones like a storm cloud is just jitters.)

Two months later, George asks him to move in, and it’s a little scary how easy it is for Dream to leave his huge glass apartment, with its smooth marble floor and lonely view of the sea and its overwhelming emptiness for a dark flat with peeling grey paint and chipped wooden floorboards.

It’s all so new and beautiful and Dream wishes he could preserve it, like a particularly shiny beetle encased in resin. He knows things are bound to go sour somewhere along the line, but he clings to George almost fiercely, even through stupid arguments and slammed doors. 

George is euphoric about Dream, nearly worships his boyfriend in a way that feels wholly correct, ingrained deep into his blood. It feels like he was made to revolve around him as planets do the sun. They go everywhere - window shopping, cafes, clubs - and George rambles to Dream at night about his job. 

George learns that he likes coming home to jjajangmyeon from the Korean place around the corner sitting in a ceramic bowl on the kitchen counter and slow dancing in the living room to Mitski songs when both he and Dream should be asleep. Dream shows him the city and the first time George sees the Getty Museum he almost cries with how much he loves it. 

He learns to love Los Angeles in the same way he learns to ignore a fluttering of discomfort the way Dream refers to historical events as if he’d seen them happen, learns to brush away how the light of a phone glances off his boyfriend’s eyes and makes them glow sometimes, late at night. Sometimes he wakes up and suppresses immediate panic at the way Dream’s face looks unfamiliar as he sleeps bathed in the glow of the morning sun.

He finds work rather quickly, settling in at a homey bakery tucked along Victory Boulevard. The owner (Niki, she introduces herself at the job interview) is European, too, with a softly accented voice that feels faintly musical - he later learns that she is a nymph. George makes fast friends with his coworkers - particularly fiery, bold Sapnap, a centaur who teases him incessantly about how George spilled hot coffee on him during his third day, and Fundy, a kitsune spirit who hates being called a furry and wears a broad smile. The regulars are also friendly enough; George immediately likes Bad, the cheerful oni who orders a muffin and a latte every morning at 8:35 on the dot, and Skeppy, a human who Bad swears up and down isn’t his boyfriend but clings to anyway. Niki is kind enough to let him schedule his shifts so that they dovetail with his apprenticeship’s demanding schedule.

Month by month, week by week, day by day, they settle into a comfortable rhythm of George and Dream forging their own path together in the world, and it’s so smooth that neither of them is particularly prepared when their lives are upturned.

George supposes he should have seen it coming; there were so many hints, but one night, when they’re both tipsy on bubbly after George’s promotion to assistant manager, Dream mentions the Prohibition almost too intimately, and George, fool that he is, dares to ask about it. 

An emotion, bigger than fear, looms in Dream’s eyes, spreads through his veins like poison. All of a sudden his lips are dry and he’s hurtling down from the haze of cheap champagne towards sickening sobriety like an angel falling from grace.

Dream’s seen gods like him exposed before, heard the stories of Jesus Christ and Apollo and everyone in between. He knows that George could be afraid, but he bares his soul anyway, and has the privilege of watching George stop breathing for a second, nothing but terror on every plane of his face. Dream understands, tiredly.

The descent happens like this:  
1\. Dream slips away in the middle of the night. George can’t bring himself to track him down, not when George feels like he’s been dunked in ice water and covered with a thin layer of frost.  
2\. He mopes, of course, at work and at his apprenticeship and on the subway and over glasses of red wine at home. Sapnap is there through it all, thank God, to listen to him cry over the phone and distract him with afternoons out.  
3\. George writes bad poetry online, publishes it for the world to see because he’s really beyond caring, and finds solidarity with a user named claywastaken. Clay reminds him of Dream, although he tries not to think about that. Sapnap is enthusiastic about letting Clay distract George from his recent heartbreak.  
4\. They talk about dating, a little. George doesn't mention Dream. Clay is sweet and agrees to meet up with George at a Starbucks after Saturday’s shift.

George is a little scared; he asks Sapnap to join him in case Clay is secretly a registered sex offender or something, though he doesn’t really think that his online friend is the type. He walks in, sees Dream, and his heart stops beating in his chest.

“Oh,” breathes George.

“Oh,” replies the god already seated at a table. George blinks, twice, and he can feel himself tearing up, horrifyingly enough. Sapnap, sensing his distress, looks at him with a question in his eyes, and George taps his left wrist twice, their pre-arranged signal to let the centaur know that it’s okay for him to leave. 

Dream stands up to go, and George is afraid, so afraid, but he takes the plunge and grabs his ex (?) boyfriend’s sleeve like it’s the only thing that is stopping him from drowning. 

“Please,” he whispers, in a voice that is impossibly hoarse, and Dream - perfect, impeccable Dream - stumbles. 

Dream is afraid, too, but he sees a glint that isn’t hate in George’s eyes and stops himself. 

George thinks he looks like a perfect stranger when Dream has that terror on his face, familiar only like deja vu. Fear is a strange thing to see on the face of a god, especially when George has only ever seen him exude confidence and light. 

They go back to George’s home, and there is talking and tears and the beginnings of healing. 

George holds Dream in his arms again, and knows that everything will be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading :)))) if you enjoyed this please leave kudos n maybe a comment (haha jk,,,, unless?). for more works like this please check out @lieyuu and @fensandmarshes's series, fever dream of a megalopolis. consider yelling at me on twitter @thepaperbones1 :) pspspsp give me validation


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